Cheryl A. Splin

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When I got married I had no idea of how marriage was really going to be like. The only expectation I had was the classic fairy tale dream of having a happily ever after marriage, and as member of the church, I had the dream of having an Eternal family.

Sometimes we come to marriages with many expectations, ideas of how our spouse should be like, act like or treat us like. It is good to have expectations; it is good to have an ideal of how we want thinks to work and how we want our relationship to be like. What is not good is to think that love and marriage is like the fairy tale stories we watch on TV. Bernard Poduska in his book, Till Death Do Us Part says, “Unfortunately, many newlyweds tend to bring to their marriages a fairy-tale belief in living happily ever after, a belief seemingly base on this supposition: “We have been good. Therefore, only good things will happen to us.””

Marriage is wonderful and magical, don’t get me wrong, but it is very important that we come prepare for what Elder Wirthlin has tell us , “Come What May, and Love It.” Some of the things my now sweetheart, fiancé back then, and I hardly discuss before getting marry were:

♥ Who is going to pay the bills? (Including tithing, and fast offerings.)
♥ Who is going to make sure we have FHE?
♥ At what time should we have couples scripture study?
♥ Who is going to drive when we are both in the car?
♥ Are we going to share the house choirs?
♥ Are we going to go grocery shopping together?
♥Where are we going to spend the holydays, with your family or with my family?
All of this and probably others you can think of, where some things I hardly ever thought about when I got marry almost 16 years ago.

Something very interesting that I learned in my first year of marriage is that each one of us comes to this wonderful union of matrimony carrying our very own backpack. In this backpack we carry all the traditions we learned in our own family, the rules we follow, the way we treat each other and the way in which we follow the teachings of the Gospel. And in my case, I was also carrying a different culture; I spoke a different language, that’s because I am from Mexico. And this is where the beauty of marriage takes place, when two imperfect individuals, with so many differences, and backgrounds, come together in the gospel and for a perfect union.

According to Harper and Frost, when a marriage takes place, the newlyweds need to star working in creating their very own “Marital Identity.” This process happens when the newly couple starts to “think of themselves as existing together inside an invisible fence. They share information and behavior with each other inside that fence, and that information and behavior is not meant to be shared with others outside the fence…”

In other words, now it is your turn to create your own family traditions. It is obvious that everything you do in your marriage will be inevitable influence by whatever you carry in your backpack, and what your sweetheart carries on his/her backpack. It is time to start your own adventure, to learn from one another, to accept each other and be willing to compromise. Things will be hard ar times, some times even harder, but as we keep our focus in our eternal goals, and we let the Savior guide, we will be moving in the right direction.

President David O. McKay said, “No other success can compensate for failure in the home. The poorest shack in which love prevails over a united family is of far greater value to God and future humanity than any other riches. In such a home God can work miracles and will work miracles”